The shacks, next to the market and the Manuel Teixeira Gomes secondary school, have been there for decades.
Newspaper, Correio da Manhã, reports the residents are to be re-homed in a series of two and three-bedroom pre-fabricated houses on the outskirts of town, for which a public tender is to be launched for the acquisition and
construction.
The council expects the pre-fabs will be ready in two months from the moment the tender is signed, the objective being for the residents to be relocated by summer.
The move comes after the council said it considers these shacks in the middle of the city “degrading” and “harmful to the city’s touristic image.”
Mayor, Isilda Gomes told the newspaper that after the move is made, “the area will be cleared up to make it more dignified.”
The land on which the shacks are built belongs to the council but it has not yet been specified for what it will ultimately be used.
Portimão council said it also wants to do away with other such areas in the city, in phases, and explained that action is only being taken now due to “serious financial difficulties” it has experienced in the past.